Carl Johan Högberg

Nethertlands

A shuttlecock is the feathered projectile badminton players keep airborne by hitting it to each other across a net. It can leave a racket faster than a tennis ball can, but once it catches the air it swoops in a buoyant arc, led by its round rubber nib, until the receiving player relaunches it from her racquet. It flies fast and slow from the same stroke, but the nib must never touch the ground. The player who eventually, inevitably, lets the shuttlecock fall loses a point to her opponent, and the next rally begins.